


Of Nebulous Mind

by d00mface



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d00mface/pseuds/d00mface
Summary: Do Darkin dream of flesh-crafted sheep?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	Of Nebulous Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I wrote for Legends of the Rift vol 2 that I can finally share here :D!!

In these moments of vulnerability when sleep became impossible to fight off Varus’ mind was a murky whirlpool threatening to drag him under. How he loathed this. The edges of his consciousness were at their most blurred when the weak mortal flesh demanded rest.

With each sleep Varus found it more and more difficult to find the place where his thoughts ended and those of the mortal souls within him began. Memories and dreams mixed together with all the carelessness of a child with paints; the vibrancy of their individual minds becoming little more than a muddy congealed mess.

Varus often dreamed of life prior to his ascension and when he did so it was almost always of his last acts as a human. Arrow after arrow loosed from his bow, coarse brown hair tied back - coming loose, face contorted in anguish. His heart thumped in his chest. Sweat beaded upon his furrowed brow. Body upon body fell before him. He alone protected this place. He made a conscious choice. He chose to stay and defend the temple he was warden of rather than flee like his fellows back to their homes, back to defend their families.

Their families.

His family.

Who were they?

What ground there was beneath his feet tilted and sent Varus tumbling sideways. His thoughts were painful pulses pressing in upon him. The world felt off balance. The darkin’s eyes squinted and closed as he tried to piece together what he remembered of his family.

So long ago. It had happened so long ago.

The memories had faded with time. Even in dreams the faces of his family lacked definition.

Sometimes their features were Ionian, pale. His mother had red hair and distinctly cherubic features.

Sometimes they seemed to share his face shape. Skin tanned as his once had been. Dark hair pulled into braids.

More often than not their features were indistinct. Ionian? Shuriman? Hard to tell. How Varus hated how hard it was to tell.

Varus shook his head and the world tilted on its side once more. He stumbled, grasping fruitlessly at thoughts as they rolled past him.

Had he been fighting Noxians? Or Icathians? Hate boiled in his heart regardless, threatening to spill over. Murderers, all of them. He remembered returning to his home from the temple, he remembered when his eyes fell upon the destruction they had wrought. A burning village. Houses torn apart. Bodies strewn about. The smell of fire and death lingering in the air. Monsters. They had taken his family from him.

His family.

At last he spotted them.

His world shifted. Varus fumbled feebly toward them.

His family.

The broken bodies of his family twisted and morphed before his eyes.

Varus’ vision blurred at the edges and he felt bile rise in his throat. The archer moved to the side of his spouse, a confusing spiral of shifting shapes. The world around him tilted this way and that - he felt ill, seasick. Varus clung to his lover. When he forced himself to focus, to remember that face, those features, the hair was dark, the skin was pale -

Kai.

Body riddled with arrows.

“No!”

Varus rejected this yet his heart still squeezed. The scene rippled in turn. Kai faded to little more than dust in his arms. He forced himself to focus on family again, his family. His his his. Not Kai’s. Not Valmar’s. His, dammit.

New figures stood in front of the archer. Indistinct. Blurry. Tall. Features that blended somewhere between animal and man.

The Ascended Host.

Shurima’s strongest warriors.

Those who had been raised up by the sun disc to become gods.

They reached towards Varus.

He reached back.

After his humanity had bled from his broken heart. After his family’s slaughter. The Ascended Host. They were all he had. As close to family one as broken of mind as he could have. Found family.

His family.

His.

Rhaast, Ta’anari, Valeeva…

The world no longer tilted beneath his feet. Clouds of gold billowed around he and his Ascended family like a barrier between this world and the next. Varus was no fool. Death had not claimed him yet nor had it claimed all of his brothers and sisters in arms. There was peace in his heart though, the kind of peace you might find on the other side of the veil. One might be forgiven for thinking this was the afterworld and not a dream. Such confusion might be understandable, after all, had Varus not had such dreams time and time again; had he not known where he was.

The glowing eyes of the ascended rested firmly upon him, burning into him like the sun above Shurima, like home.

One figure stood out from the rest. Features defined, known. Wings of gold, noble of aura-

Aatrox.

Varus was drawn closer. Aatrox’s hand outstretched to him.

Aatrox had been the best of all of them. The boldest, the quickest to jump to the aid of others. Even when his mind was at its most broken state Varus had admired Aatrox. He was like a pillar. Where Aatrox was Varus had felt… stable, safe.

Varus’ heart thumped in his chest. His cheeks flushed.

The archer closed the gap between he and Aatrox hungrily. Looking almost lost. Eyes searching for something. A purpose perhaps. A mission. He was a soldier seeking orders as many of the Ascended had been in their prime.

Aatrox’s lips moved. Varus was transfixed. His hands flexed, then curled.

“Unite the five.”

Varus’ grip on his bow tightened. He nodded in acceptance of this mission. 

Violet eyes fluttered open. Varus roused from slumber.

“That was… Aatrox wasn’t it?” Kai’s voice pressed into his mind, curious as ever - annoying as ever. It seemed someone else had been paying attention to the dream this time, to his thoughts.

Varus did not answer right away, fiddling with the brown hood of the Shuriman outfit he currently wore. Something of a disguise he picked up off of one of his more recent victims. How Kai and Valmar had rebelled against the senseless violence, but if he was going to travel through Shurima via their methods of communal transportation he would rather not make too much of a scene. It would be quicker if he blended in. Much as he hated to be seen as human and spend extended periods of time with them even Varus could not deny that this route was the most sensible.

Thumb and forefinger rubbed at the cloth.

There was something nostalgic about these clothes. About being back in Shurima… especially given the rumors. The capitol unburied, a long dead emperor returning to life. He wanted to dismiss such fantasies and yet there was a part of him that wanted to grasp them tightly.

The darkin took a deep breath and listened to the idle whispers between other passengers of the small sand-skiff. Keen of ear Varus knew they spoke of him. Even cloaked head to toe in brown rags and wrappings he could not conceal his eyes - all whites and no pupils, practically glowing with a violet tint. He sensed the fear and unease that came with his being there and couldn’t help but smile. Varus pushed past the sounds of whispers and focused on the creaking and groaning of the small vessel. It sounded like it would break apart at any moment, pulled too fiercely by the juvenile sandswimmers that were harnessed to such skiffs.

“Yes,” Varus responded internally at last.

“Is he the one you seek in Shurima?” Kai spoke up again.

“No, it’s his sister,” Valmar spoke before he could respond, “He mentioned her in the ruined city. I think we’ve seen her in our dreams, Kai. She must have been in that crowd with A-”

“Quiet.” Varus hissed, this time out loud. There were stares. He ignored them.

“I don’t need your help playing detective.” Those words were kept within his mind at least.

Silence weighed with an eerie heaviness in the darkin’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Kai spoke up as he always did. “About your family, I mean.”

Varus had expected the apology, but not the follow up. The dream. His family. Varus’ nose wrinkled, eyes squinting in confused suspicion. Kai had borne witness to that dream on countless occasions. All of them had. It wasn’t new.

“I… understand your pain,” Kai continued when Varus did not reply. The darkin had no understanding of the empathy the Ionian was displaying; he remained on guard, “We’ll find your sister.”

Varus’ eyes widened before settling back into a suspicious squint.

“I said - quiet.” He growled aloud. Stares were upon him again.

Kai and Valmar pressed closer to his brain. At the edge of his mind they seemed to wait like vultures. Then, just as quickly, they faded back into the obscurity of his dark thoughts.

Varus sighed. The darkin knew Kai and Valmar wanted to help.

He knew there was even some sincerity there.

But he believed their true motivation, their primary motivation, was their desire for freedom. Perhaps they thought once he united the five that he would… let them go? He had to laugh. When he united the five darkin the time of humanity would come to a close shortly after. There was no freedom to be found there, only vengeance.

Varus folded his arms and pulled the hood over his eyes, silently willing this journey to go faster. This time the archer remained awake. Even still his thoughts drifted back to Aatrox, to the Ascended host. His found family. Brothers and sisters in arms. Fists curled at his sides before relaxing.

His family.

The few that remained.

He would find them. He would unite the five.

A distinctly Ionian face crossed his mental vision once more.

Varus’ eyes squeezed shut tightly, forcing himself to think of something else – someone else. Darkin. Aatrox. Anything.

The darkin’s heart fluttered all the same.


End file.
